Other People's Business
by AceWriter117
Summary: Four vignettes about Dahlia, life lessons, and monsters. WARNING: Graphic depiction of corpses in later chapters.


**Chapter 1: Hiker**

* * *

 **Dahlia Hawthorne enjoys the outdoors.**

* * *

They found a body up in the woods.

I overheard some people talking about it. Whispers and stuff. There's been nothing official from the police yet, so it might turn out to be fake. But still…

Yeah, I know. Kinda crazy, huh? Not something you'd expect to see in a small town like this.

Think it has anything to do with the disappearances?

… Yeah. Same here.

Anyway, you know Dahlia Hawthorne? Girl in our school, red hair, keeps to herself?

Pretends her name is Melissa Foster?

Yeah, that's the one.

Anyway, I think she's heading up to the forest to search for more.

How I know? Nothing weird. I saw her at the bus station earlier today, waiting for the 10 o'clock that heads there. She left her umbrella at home and changed into more outdoorsy clothes. If she hadn't done up her hair like she always does, I probably wouldn't have recognized her.

You think there could be more to this? You think there could more bodies up there?

True. Doesn't matter to us, does it? It's not our business.

* * *

Dahlia Hawthorne was alone.

The only sound accompanying her in the wilderness was the wind's rustle through the trees. No birds chirping, no water crackling, not even any bugs buzzing about. It may have been spring, but you would have never figured that out by looking at this forest.

That said, she kind of liked the silence. Back in town, there always seemed to be eyes on her, but out here, there was less of that. It wasn't completely gone, but there was less.

She didn't expect to see anyone else. She had been the only passenger on the bus ride here.

The bus went up to the forest twice each day, leaving from the center of town, taking about an hour and a half to get there. She had spent the ride reading. The bus stopped right outside the entrance to the forest, near where several of the more popular trails started, but Dahlia got off before that without saying a word.

Where she was headed was out of the way, off the beaten path, and far, far away from any of the nature trails other hikers would take.

Her trail would hopefully lead her to a dead body.

* * *

All the information had come from rumours. She had heard one of her classmates, some police officer's son, gossiping about what his dad found. Of course, she'd pretended she wasn't listening, but she was paying more attention to it than the teacher's drone at the time.

The guy he was talking to didn't believe him, but it piqued her interest enough that she decided to do some of her own research, and what do you know, there were a couple of police vehicles parked outside the forest the night before.

She knew nothing else. Nothing about the body; nothing about what condition it was found in; nothing about what kind of person it used to belong to.

That last point especially interested her at the time.

* * *

So far, there hadn't been much to see. Just trees, trees, and more trees; everything around her painted a shade of green or brown. She didn't stop to take in any of it. She had something to find.

* * *

Four girls had gone missing so far.

The disappearances had happened over the last couple months, all of them from her high school. Nobody knew where they had gone; no bodies had been found. They would come to class one day and not show up the next. Or the next. Or the next. It was like they never existed in the first place.

It had piqued her interest since the very beginning, she couldn't help it.

Death fascinated her.

She always had an interest in the macabre. Ever since she was a little girl, when she was first taken in by writers such as Poe and Lovecraft, she had been captivated by the morbid tales she could get her hands on. When she was younger, she would stay up all night reading children's books full of scary stories, and during her short stay in middle school, it was a rare day when she didn't have a book by King checked out of the library. On her tenth birthday, she read Frankenstein in one night. Her favourite Shakespearian play was Titus Andronicus, and she loved all the other tragedies.

However, since it was frowned upon for a young lady such as herself to display such curiosities, she stopped showing that side of herself to other people in high school. She would still read the same type of stories she always did, but at home on the internet, not in class, and she would never talk about it to another person.

And now, she was trying to get to the bottom of this. Trying to uncover this mystery.

Every night, when she would head back to the apartment she was renting out, she would comb over the school's message boards, both the official and unofficial ones, and the town's newspapers, looking for whatever scraps to this story she could find.

The police hadn't managed to find much. Despite the false hope she saw in every 'Missing Person' poster, she doubted that any of the girls were still alive. Death was something familiar to her, and she couldn't shake that recognition whenever another of her classmates would just stop showing up.

* * *

Her feet carried her over knotted roots and fallen branches. The moist ground silenced the sound of her steps. She wasn't even halfway to her destination and she was already far away from any mapped trail, and by extension, any other people.

* * *

That's why the news had interested her so much, despite her knowing very well it just might turn out to be nothing. It offered an explanation.

If their remains were being buried up in the forest, the chances of anyone finding them were low. It was a large forest, and if no one was looking, the perfect hiding place for a corpse.

The moment she first heard the news, she started preparing for a trip up to the woods. She had packed a knapsack with everything she would need for a day of hiking: a couple water bottles; a sandwich for lunch; some snacks; sunscreen (though she didn't think she'd need it since the sky was overcast); a trowel and other gardening tools she had picked up from the hardware store the night before; and a camera just in case she found something.

From the information she had acquired earlier, she had a rough idea of where the police found the body. There were a couple parking lots spread around the edge of woods and so she could guess the location by which parking lots she knew the cops had stopped in. It was only natural to start looking there.

It was a large forest, so the chances of finding another body were slim, but they weren't zero.

It excited her.

Besides, it wasn't like she had anything better to do in her free time.

* * *

At one, she decided to take a break. She sat down on a fallen log, and ate one of her snacks, all while silently taking in the scenery around her.

She hadn't passed by a single animal yet. People she wasn't expecting to see, but no animals? That was surprising. It was spring! Fawns were supposed to be out playing with does, frolicking in the wilderness. Bears awakening from hibernation.

Life.

But there was none of that here. It was like something was keeping it away, keeping the forest silent and its secrets hidden.

Nature's beauty, it wasn't.

* * *

She kept her investigation hidden. As far as she knew, no one had any idea about her interests.

It wasn't because she was popular at school, she wasn't and she knew it.

Not having many friends wasn't something she minded most of time, but sometimes, there being no one to talk to bothered her. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere; most of the kids at school had known each other since kindergarten, and outsiders like her were looked upon with suspicion.

But still, she could do without being known as the funny girl who searches for corpses in her spare time.

* * *

The eerie silence reminded her that out here, she was completely isolated. She had no way of contacting anyone. There was no reception out where she was, so she hadn't brought her cell with her. If anything went wrong, there was no way she'd be able to let anyone know.

It made her feel uneasy, but she still pressed on.

* * *

There had been some close calls though. Times when another person had nearly discovered her morbid curiosities.

Just that Thursday, in fact.

"So, what are you planning to do this weekend?" her friend Erica had asked. "Anything good?"

Erica was one of the only people in school Dahlia regularly talked to, and the only person there she considered a friend.

Just before the conversation turned to her weekend activities, Erica had been asking her about Julia, the latest disappearance. Dahlia feigned ignorance at the time, but she was well aware of any updates involving the missing girls.

As for Julia, she had known her. Not well, but she had known her. They had been forced to work together on an English presentation a while back. Julia had also nearly drowned her in one of the school toilets after she got the idea that Dahlia was making a move on her boyfriend.

There was enough history between the two that Dahlia was able to recognize her face when it started being plastered all over town.

When she answered Erica about her plans, she decided to tell the truth, even though she didn't really know why at the time. She just felt like being honest for once. Probably a side effect from living all the lies she was currently tangled up in.

Erica had, unsurprisingly, recoiled in disgust, reminding Dahlia why she usually refrained from talking about it. "Eww… Seriously?" she'd said. "You're planning to look for corpses?"

Dahlia quickly realized she needed to talk her way out of that. She ended up being so proud of her ensuing performance that she had the lines memorized in case they needed to be reused.

"I was thinking that maybe it has something to do with the missing girls." She then shifted into her innocent, on the verge of tears, voice. "I-It's just what's happening is bothering me so much. I can't take it." She followed that up by making her eyes glisten before she began wiping the tears away. "I want to do whatever I can to help find them and let their families know what really happened to them. If I can do just a little bit to bring one family peace, it would make me happy."

She watched as Erica seemed to relax.

When Erica told her, "That's so nice of you. I wish I was that brave," and waved her goodbye, she smiled and congratulated herself for being able to talk her way out of that.

Still, it had been a closer call than she liked.

* * *

It had taken her about another hour's walk to reach her destination. The bus would return to the forest at six, and if she wasn't at the stop when it arrived, she'd have to spend the night here.

That would be a nightmare. The time she had spent in this place so far had already made her want to leave and never come back.

That left her with around an hour and a half to look before she would have to start heading back. It was less time than she would have liked, but unfortunately, she wasn't old enough to drive, so she had to follow the whims of the bus schedule.

A quick check of the map she brought told her she was in the right place. At least, that's what she hoped. The information it had on this section of the forest was sparse.

She knew what to look for. She was always a big fan of crime shows; the worse shape the body was in, the better the episode in her opinion. And while they did take some artistic license, they still taught what signs to look for when searching for a buried corpse.

And now, she was ready to start looking.

Who knew, maybe she would get to see Julia again?

* * *

After fifteen minutes of wandering around, she heard a noise that broke the silence of the forest.

It was a grunt. Human, she guessed. Male.

It had sent a shiver down her spine. After being so used to only the wind's rustle and the occasional snap of twigs, it surprised her.

She wasn't expecting to see anybody else here. What was somebody doing so far out in the woods?

She started in the direction of the sound. As she got closer, the occasional grunts grew louder and louder, and began being accompanied by another noise.

It sounded like… a shovel.

She emerged from a group of bushes to see a man digging near a tree, the shovel in hand. His movements were quick, slicing into the ground with the spade before tossing out a rain of soft dirt.

She slowly walked up towards him, trying to see what was inside the hole he was making.

What she saw staring back at her from inside made her gasp.

It was a ribcage; a human's ribcage.

The smell coming from it was almost unbearable. Thankfully, she had a strong stomach.

At this point, pretty much only the bones were left. All the internal organs had since deteriorated. Whatever skin was there had been stained by the earth and came off like wet paper. There were some maggots and a few worms underneath, feasting on what little flesh remained.

The man heard her and froze, almost dropping the shovel. He slowly swiveled around to face her.

He was in his fifties, she guessed from his greying hair. He wore hiking gear, and his attire, which included a hiking stick, told her he had probably been coming here for a while. Several of the older folks in her town would hike in the forest to get exercise. It was a common pastime.

But what was he doing so far away from the trails?

Even though it was cool out, his face and hair was damp with sweat, likely from the digging.

"So, you're out here searching for bodies too, huh?"

The man seemed as surprised by the question as he had been by her presence. She didn't blame him; she hadn't expected to meet anyone either.

"Yes. That's it," he eventually responded.

"You weren't expecting anyone either?"

"… No, not really."

"Um… do you think I could take a look?" she asked, pointing to the corpse. "I always wanted to see a dead body up close."

"… Sure, that's okay," the hiker said. He gave her a small smile, revealing a mouth full of yellowed teeth. "You've already seen it… after all."

She slowly approached the spot, her eyes fixed on what was exposed of the rotting corpse in front of her. Kneeling down beside the hole, she looked inside.

The hole the man had dug wasn't very deep, only a few inches below the ground. Considering how close the body was to the surface, Dahlia was surprised that no animals had managed to dig it up before. It was a forest, after all. Despite how dead it seemed at this time of year, it was apparently very much alive. She considered that an animal may have dug at it, and that might have been what led the man to the spot in the first place.

She wasn't a coroner, but even she could tell the body had been there for a while from the decay it had undergone. A year at least, probably longer.

The disappearances had only started a couple months ago, meaning that whoever this was, it probably wasn't one of the missing girls. The ribcage was also too big for a teenage girl; it had to belong to an adult.

It was almost disappointing. She was hoping to find something on the missing girls, not some unrelated skeleton.

"Uh… Miss," she heard the hiker say behind her.

"Yes," she said, turning to face him.

"You're here because of the police investigation, right?"

"Of course," she exclaimed. "You too?"

"Yeah."

A smile made its way across her face. She never expected to meet someone with the same interests as her, another with the same adventurous love of the macabre. It made her feel like she wasn't alone after all. There were others like her. It may not have been a normal hobby, but it wasn't a unique one either.

The two may have been separated by several decades, but right now, she felt a kinship with the older man.

"So, how did you find it?" she asked.

The hiker dropped his shovel and marched up beside her. He pointed to the hole. "It isn't easy to see now, but the ground looked off. It wasn't hard to pick this spot out."

It was what she guessed, so there weren't any surprises there. Still, coming out here, she knew it was unlikely she'd find a single thing.

But here it was: an actual dead body.

"That's kind of amazing." It was hard for her to hide her enthusiasm. She almost never got to show this side of herself to other people. So of course, she used the opportunity as much as she could.

He smiled. "Thanks. When you walk this forest as much as I do, you just know when things look off. Is this your first time out here?"

She shook her head. "No. I've been on the trails a few times, but this is the first time I've come out this far."

"It's a completely different experience, isn't it? Glad to see someone else appreciates nature. Hardly saw anyone on my way up. Seems like most folks were scared away because of the police investigation."

"Do you live nearby?"

"Pretty close. You from town?"

"I am. I had to take the bus to come up here." She glanced back at the skeleton. "When did you find the body?"

"Little while ago," he said. "Been digging ever since. You manage to find anything yourself?"

A thought occurred to her just as she finished shaking her head. "Do you think I can help out?" she asked, reaching into her bag and pulling out the trowel.

"Sure."

She started digging near the top of the mound, where she guessed the head would be. Judging by the state of the ribcage, the rest of the body had nothing to tell her about the person it had once belonged to, but even so…

"What do you know about the police investigation?" she asked him as she dug. He had stepped away from her.

"Heard they found a skeleton nearby a few days ago. I couldn't believe it."

She felt the slightest bit uneasy, even though she didn't know exactly why. She had looked everywhere online, but she had never heard anything about the state the body was found in.

Of course, there was a simple explanation. The body he had managed to find was almost a skeleton, so it wasn't hard to assume the other one was as well.

But still…

She quickly uncovered the skull, no eyes and sockets filled with dirt, skin long ago stripped from it, and its jaw wide open, frozen in an eternal scream.

She raised a hand to her own mouth. Even though the skull should have scared or horrified her, she didn't feel any of that. The morbid sight fascinated her. She had never seen anything in her life like this before. Even though looking at this long dead corpse made her feel uneasy, she couldn't help but continue staring at it…

"Can I touch it?" she asked him.

"I'm not the one you should be asking."

They both had a good laugh over that one.

She reached out and touched it, running her fingers along the forehead. The skull felt cool to the touch and slightly sticky. As she gazed upon it, she wished she could have come out here earlier and found the corpse herself. This was an interesting experience, but she had still only gotten second place.

Her curiosity satisfied, she pulled out her camera to start taking pictures of the find.

"Uh. No pictures, please," the hiker said.

"Just one? It's for me. I'm not planning to hand them over to the police or anything. You can still get credit for finding the body. I'm not trying to take that away."

"… Fine. Just one. But promise you don't tell the police or anybody else about what you found here. I'll… go talk to them instead."

She agreed to his demand and gave him her camera. She sat beside what had been uncovered of the dead body, smiled, and made a peace sign as he took the picture. Handing it back to her, he asked her if it was okay. It was perfect.

She understood the man's reluctance. The police were already looking for corpses around here, so they probably would pay for new information. The local newspaper was also probably ready to compensate him for any accompanying pictures for their story on the dead bodies in the forest.

For some reason, even though that explanation made sense to her, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling she had.

Maybe she was just getting hungry?

She sat down and started eating her sandwich in the grass right beside her new silent companion. She was careful to only eat with the hand she hadn't used to touch the body.

"You're really eating here?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Can't you head somewhere else?"

She shook her head.

The man let out a groan.

Who did the skeleton belong to, she wondered? How did they die? Who killed them? It was obvious they were killed by someone. If an animal had done it, they wouldn't have been buried so neatly. Why were they buried in the forest? The last one she had a pretty good guess to: so no one would ever find them. Were they a man or a woman? How old? Did they suffer in their last moments? Did they know their killer? The skull and the ribcage offered no answers to her questions.

As she ate, she noticed the hiker sending the occasional glance her way. Despite taking a break from digging, he still seemed to be sweating rather profusely.

He seemed almost reluctant. He could have continued digging, to uncover the rest of the corpse, but he wasn't. Instead he was just leaning on his shovel and watching her.

Finishing her lunch, she got ready to leave. She had gotten what she'd came for, and it was getting close to the time she needed to start heading back.

The hiker didn't take his eyes off her as she packed up her things. He did let out a sigh of relief once she had put her backpack on.

"So, you're going now?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "The bus back to town leaves in a couple hours, so I need to start heading back soon. I still have a bit of time, so I think I'll look for another corpse until then."

"Really… that's…" He didn't finish the sentence.

She let herself have one last look at the corpse.

"Still can't believe it. I had no idea he'd be looking like that."

She turned to him.

"He?" The word came out of her mouth before she put any thought into it.

Uneasy feelings swirled in her stomach, stronger than before. She felt the need to get out of there right now. How did he know that the skeleton belonged to a man?

She had the feeling that something was off about all this.

He froze. "Uh… I… Did I say that?" he replied.

Dahlia nodded. "Yes. How do you know the body belonged to a man?"

"I… I…"

How could he know the body was male, she wondered? She knew that women have wider pelvic bones than men, but only the ribcage and skull had been uncovered. There was no way he could have been able to tell the gender just by looking at the corpse. He might have just been guessing though. She would have also guessed it was male.

"How did you know it was a man?" she asked one more time.

"I… Just… I need to think…"

He would have had no way of knowing. Unless…

"I'm sorry," he said. "At my age, I sometimes say the wrong things. I shouldn't have said that… You shouldn't have heard that…"

He lifted his shovel, and turned to meet her gaze. Something was wrong with him. Something was very wrong. That was very clear to her now.

"You _really_ shouldn't have heard that."

She felt all her muscles clench up. She couldn't move an inch. The man just stared at her. His eyes were cold now. Dahlia felt herself staring back.

She had to leave.

She had to leave right now.

She tried to bolt, but he was too fast for her. She screamed as the end of the shovel slammed into her side, sending her to the ground and knocking all the breath from her. She pressed a hand to her side. It felt tender, like nothing was there, like she had cracked a rib or two.

"It's you… isn't it?" she said, turning back up at him. Tears of pain were flowing from her eyes. "That's how you found him. The bodies… It's… you…"

He hadn't been out searching because he shared her interests. It seemed that crime shows were right; criminals will always return to where they hid the body, especially if the police just found another one of their corpses.

"You know, that's the problem with folks nowadays: they're always sticking their noses into other people's business. What a shame too…" He glanced behind at the skeleton. "I was almost done."

"I…" She looked him straight in the eyes. "I won't tell anyone."

He raised the shovel high over his head. "You're right, you won't be telling anyone."

She lifted her left hand in front of her in defense. The metal shovel smacked hard into it, sending another jolt of pain through her body, getting another scream out of her. She heard something crack and guessed it wasn't the shovel.

The hiker lifted the shovel up into the air again.

Then, from out of the woods, came a snap of twigs. The old man turned his eyes towards the sound for a split-second, and she took her chance. She scrambled up to her feet, trying her best to ignore the pain in her side, and sprinted off into the trees. She ran as fast as she could.

She tried to remember exactly where she was. The highway; she had to reach the highway. It may have been over two hours away, but she had to get there. Maybe if she was lucky, she could find help. She turned left, in what she thought was the direction of the road.

She glanced back to see the hiker hot on her tail. He was surprisingly spry for someone his age. His face was twisted in a grimace as chased her down.

She was having trouble breathing. She wasn't the best in her gym class, but she did okay. However, she doubted that this was something that could have been fixed by more track. He, on the other hand, was in shape and wasn't fighting through an injury. In other words…

He was gaining on her.

She kept running, jumping over the occasional root and fallen log, and ducking under some of the lower hanging branches.

It was hard. She wasn't used to running like this. Her legs hurt; her lungs burned; her side ached. It was like her entire body was telling her to stop. But she couldn't. She had to get away. She had to get away.

She felt the hiker grab the top of her bag and she screamed. Desperately, she quickly tore her left arm out of the strap, but her right seemed like it was caught. She turned back around to free it, still screaming, only to meet the hiker's wide eyes. The way he looked at her reminded her of a crazed animal in a nature documentary; right about to pounce on its prey.

She managed to free her right arm, and tried turning back around, only for his fist to meet her side. She screamed again as her injured side flared up once more. She fell face-first into the ground, knocking the wind temporarily out of her. There was a _thump_ at her side, and then, she felt the hiker's large hands grab both of her legs and hold them together. He started dragging her across the forest floor as she screamed and screamed, hoping that anyone would hear.

Suddenly, he let her go and she stopped, and just as suddenly, she felt him grab both of her shoulders and lift her up, before he threw her hard against a large tree. Her breath once again knocked from her, she slid down the bark, and once more sat against the forest floor.

He walked up to her, placed both of his hands on her windpipe, and started pushing. She tried breathing, but found herself unable. He was breathing heavily, nearly panting, but it didn't matter, he was still the one who was breathing.

"Should've just stayed out of my business… It's a good thing you like nature, Miss, because you're going to be spending a long time here," he said as he kept on pushing.

She tried smashing her good fist against his hands, but it was no use. It did nothing to loosen his grip.

"Don't worry, I'll dig you a nice deep hole. I'll bury you nice and deep; deeper than I buried them. No one's ever going to find you. The police won't ever dig you up."

Her lungs screamed for air. Black spots appeared at the edges of her vision. She could feel the life slipping away from her as she futilely tried to take in any air she could, even though she couldn't manage a single breath.

Suddenly, she heard a _boom_ echo through the trees. The hiker's head jerked to the side, the rest of his body following, tearing his arms from her throat.

Finally free, she gasped for air. The fresh air stung her chest as it came in with a strange wheezing noise. She held her good hand against her throat as she tried to her hardest to catch her breath. The back of her head stung from how hard it had been pressed into the bark.

She looked at her attacker. Blood was bubbling up from a wound at the side of his head. His eyes, now staring limply at her, were bloodshot. He was dead.

Yes, he was dead.

She heard the rustle of leaves to her left and turned to see a man rushing up to her. He was wearing dark camo greens and was holding a rifle in his hands.

"Hey! Are you okay?" the man asked.

She nodded. Speaking required more air than she had.

She tried to slowly stand up, supporting herself on the tree. The man rushed over, and helped her to her feet.

"Thank… you," she wheezed out.

"That's a relief," the man said. "Good thing I stepped in when I did. Looked to me like he was trying to take advantage of you."

She looked at her saviour and then suddenly stepped back. He could see the fear in her eyes.

"Hey, hey, hey," he said, raising his hands in the air and taking one off the gun. "Relax. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Why do you have a gun?" she asked, her voice raspy and hoarse.

"I'm just out hunting. Looking to catch some deer."

"It's not deer season, though."

"… I know." He turned his eyes to the dead body that lay on the forest floor. "Hey… uh, do you think you can maybe not mention this to anyone?"

She stared at the corpse, the hiker who had almost taken her life, before she turned back to her saviour and nodded.

"Sure."

* * *

She kept her promise. She stayed silent, not telling the police or anyone else what had transpired in that forest. After she got back home, she deleted the photo of her and the skeleton from her camera, and furthermore, took a hammer to the SD card.

After finishing with that, she went straight to the hospital. When the doctors asked, she told them she had fallen from a balcony and landed on her side, and that she tried to use her hand to break the fall. They kept her in a bed for a few days as they fixed her broken ribs and punctured lung, and realigned a few bones in her hand.

When she arrived back at school wearing a cast, none of her classmates asked her what happened. They weren't interested in her injuries. It wasn't unusual for an unpopular girl to get hurt.

She slipped into her usual routine, like nothing had happened. If her encounter with the hiker had taught her anything, it was that she was alone, and she would always be alone.

She was used to that.

* * *

 **A/N: Hope you enjoyed it. I got the idea for this story from reading a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fanfic called "In Pursuit" by damedanbo on AO3 (link with spaces and '.' replaced by ',' so it doesn't get removed:** **archiveofourown,org/ works/ 7846699/ chapters/ 17916292)** **, and liking the style so much that I wanted to try writing in it a similar style as a writing exercise. The story is heavily inspired by "In Pursuit", borrowing the general style and a couple lines I found especially unnerving while reading the original fic, so if you liked this one, I'd suggest checking out the inspiration.**

 **I would like to thank PierceTheVeils for reading over this chapter. They were a big help in making this story better.**

 **Just a warning, while this chapter was somewhat tame, the next chapters contain a few graphic depictions of bodies.**


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